“Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook and top Samsung Electronic Co Ltd executives disagreed last week on the value of each other’s patents at a settlement conference ahead of a high profile U.S. trial, according to a source familiar with the matter,” Dan Levine and Poornima Gupta report for Reuters.

“The trial is scheduled to begin July 30 in a San Jose, Calif. federal court. Cook participated in mediation with Samsung’s Vice Chairman Choi Gee-sung and mobile chief Shin Jong-Kyun last Monday in the San Francisco area to see if the two sides could resolve the dispute, several separate sources said,” Levine and Gupta report. “The executives from Apple and Samsung participated as part of the court directed mediation process, these sources said. While a settlement is always possible, it is unlikely to come ahead of the California trial, they said.”

Levine and Gupta report, “Among the major issues in dispute between Apple and Samsung is how to value so-called standard essential patents. These are patents which Samsung agreed to license to competitors on fair and reasonable terms, in exchange for having the technology be adopted as an industry standard. Some judges are reluctant to issue injunctions over such patents… The mediation last week was at least the second between top executives. A previous session in May did not produce any settlements.”